Re: Economics of dead tree (was: Re: A Radical Thesis)

From: Teresa A. Martin <tmartin[_at_]projectcool.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 16:46:07 -0700

Buford C. Terrell:
>
> But most of what is published on paper is also ephemeral. Libraries,
> serving as archivists, have been independent of publishers at least
> since the press moved book publishing out of the monastic scriptoria.
> Some of the libraries are beginning to take seriously their roles
> as electronic archivists as well, but I'm not sure that archiving is,
> or should be, any direct concern of the publisher as publisher.

I think it depends on the type of publisher. Look at newspapers. They play a social role as chroniclers of history within their community. They do (well, at least they historically have) played a role as archivist. And this is a good thing. Many newspapers are also discovering that there is financial value in their archives (which does raise intersting questions of ownership of non-staff written material, but that's another story) and are beginning to market them.

--Teresa Martin

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Teresa A. Martin Project Cool, Inc. www.projectcool.com

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Received on Thu Apr 25 1996 - 23:39:28 GMT